I hope to sing this song at the Góilín singers club here in Dublin next friday (18th June). I have taken an extreme liberty and rewritten the last verse in a form that (in my opinion)scans easier than the version which Frank sings, I have done this in an attempt to make the song more accessible. I would really appreciate some brutally constructive critism on my efforts as usually I am loath to interfere with song lyrics.

Franks version
All you young girls with sweethearts out yonder
That go daily to buy the black gown
It's one thousand to one I will lay you
Your love fell on the eighteenth of June
Sixty thousand bravehearted stout soldiers
who died made an awful pall tune
And there's many's a one will remember
With sorrow the eighteenth of June.

My rewritten version
All you widows whose loves died in battle
And who daily must don the black gown
It's one thousand to one I will lay you
Your love died on the Eighteenth of June
Sixty thousand stout hearted brave soldiers
Were slain and their bodies lay strewn
Amid the ruin and destruction of the battle
That befell on the Eighteenth of June.